The further away from chimpanzee DNA that human DNA becomes, in the direction Tyson is talking about, the harder it becomes for evolution to continue pushing DNA in that direction. There's even a case to be made that evolution is no longer involved in directing human DNA. So perhaps there's a sort of natural upper limit on how far any intelligence can be naturally pushed, in a positive direction, away from something like chimpanzee intelligence.

Thought 2:

Maybe that same limit is where self-improvement, through artificial genetic enhancement, tends to take over. Once we know precisely how DNA encodes our own intelligence, and have the tools for tweaking, it might not be all that long before human DNA takes its next 1% step.

Sumaleth, wow that is interesting you might be on the truth there. Sad in a way if there's a limit to our mind....
Maybe if evolution pushes us we might grow bigger brains perhaps?....
I think the robots will be better than us, maybe they are the next step. However then comes the question, are robots limited to our way of thinking or can they expand beyond their circuits....=?

I think the robots will be better than us, maybe they are the next step. However then comes the question, are robots limited to our way of thinking or can they expand beyond their circuits....=?

They'll certainly be able to expand. And they'll be able to do it much faster than any biological brain could by pushed by natural evolution.

They can almost do it now. You want to start by creating a simulated neural network, create lots of copies and give each copy a random starting network, and include a system for simulated "mating" (and random changes) to produce offspring networks.

And then introduce a system for "selection"; in other words, a way to make less effective networks die off, and the best ones survive long enough to create the next generation.

With the right selection process they will, presumably, start heading towards intelligence. It might take a long time to reach "smart", but it would take a lot less time than it took for single-cell organisms to get to quantum mechanics.

Games like Black & White, Creatures, and Spore use that sort of setup, in a limited sense. And the game projects get it from the field of AI research which has been looking at it for decades. Here's an interesting talk on a project called Polyworld: